Facebook today smashed through the one billion user mark as the world’s biggest social network shrugged off the problems around its troubled stock market float earlier this year.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg broke the news in a blog posting on his own Facebook page.
“This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month,” wrote Zuckerberg. “Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.”
Facebook reached 900 million users in April, which means it has added another 100 million in just six months, with growth coming especially in new emerging markets in Asia and Latin America.
The website, which Zuckerberg founded at the age of 20 at Harvard University in 2004, reached 100 million in August 2008 and 500 million less than two years later in July 2010.
Facebook said its one billion users have made 140.3 billion friend connections and registered 1.13 trillion “Likes” — when they like a comment or brand on the site.
62.6 million songs have also been played 22 billion times on the site. “That’s about 210,000 years of music,” said Facebook.
The continuing popularity of Facebook will be a boost to Zuckerberg after the company’s disastrous stock market float in May.
Shares have slumped from $38 to $22, slashing its value to around $47 billion, over fears that Facebook is struggling to make money from mobile and some users are moving to other sites.
Zuckeberg said in his blog posting: “I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.”
The 28-year-old chief executive added: “Thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you.”
Facebook is hardly a little team now as it employs close to 4000 people. Twitter is thought to have around 200 million users and Google+ around 100 million.
